I can’t believe how long it has taken me to review this place. I mean, dead grass and leaves starting to come back.. hell.. long sleeve shirts were still appropriate daytime attire.  Now it’s consistently in the 90′s and humid enough to swim.  I’m on the brink of growing gills. Tangents about my lax writing schedule aside, I digress.  I’ve dropped by numerous times for the shrimp Po Boy. Shrimp is always perfectly cooked, light layer of mayo on a semi crusty bread.  Crisp lettuce and fresh tomatoes.  Drop some hot sauce on the Po Boy and it’s the best Po Boy I’ve had in Tampa (to be fair, I’ve found very few places that offer shrimp Po Boys).

The prices aren’t too high, but it’s not cheap either.  The quality of the food outweighs any misgivings I might have had though. Coworkers have told me about how good their beignets are, but it’s something I’ve yet to try. I keep wanting to try their Jambalaya and Gumbo, but the draw of a perfectly made Po Boy keeps me from straying. The decor is fun, but I’ve never been to New Orleans.. so I can’t really comment on how it relates to that. Cozy atmosphere and servers have always been friendly.

I give it a Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. Excellent Po Bo, but I’ve yet to try anything else out.

Ever since I moved down to Florida I’ve been craving a well made gyro.  You would think it wouldn’t be too hard to find some shaved lamb on a spit in fresh pita with vegetables and tzatziki. Detroit seemed to be the land of plenty when it came to Greek food.  I mean you can’t drive 2 blocks without seeing a Coney or Greek diner. So anyways, I was really jonesing for a Gyro and hopped on google and searched for Gyro and 33603.  Gyro Land appeared to be the closest place, and you would think with a new like Gyro Land that they’d have Gyros.  I didn’t take any pictures of the inside of the restaurant, but the place was pretty run down.  The chairs looked older than Clint Eastwood, and he’s practically Skeletor.

So anyways, the place was beaten up.  Walked in and it seemed a little sketchy, but a man’s gotta get his gyro, nom’ sayin?  Ordered up 2 gyro’s with fries and some jumbo scrimp, because who doesn’t want some delicious scrimp? Sat down to wait for our food, some hobo wanders in muttering about timecube or some such.  Did the needful and ignored him.  Brought the food home and was thoroughly underwhelmed.  It was some thick cut lamb, which was hopeful.  It was a really well put together wrap but not quite a classic gyro.  Tzatziki was kinda thick but otherwise decent.  Most of the food was kinda chilly, but I think we can blame that on the drive back.  Fries were fries.  Same deal you get everywhere else.  Lightly seasoned with some spice combination.  The odd thing is that the scrimp was the standout in the whole affair.  I’ve had some bad shrimp before, I mean.. I’ve been to a Red Lobster.  The Gyro Land batter wasn’t too heavy and the shrimps were still nice and firm.  Worth coming back for the shrimp, still not the gyro I’m looking for.

I give it 2.5 Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars.  Decor was nothing to write home about and the gyro was only okay. Not cheap, but not expensive either.  If you’re hungry and want something quickly give Gyro Land a shot.

(Matt the Editor’s Note)PS~ To eat here you might get hit up by Bubbs for some smokes. Buyer beware on that one.

On the good advice of my coworker Derrick my family ventured out to Westchase to try Burger 21 on a sunny Tampa afternoon.  My first impression upon walking in was that Burger 21 was going for a classy-‘Five Guys Burgers.’  There is a roped off queue to wait in if the restaurant happens to be that busy.  In the queue there are copies of the menu.  After my initial perusal I was surprised to find very reasonable prices (burgers started around $5) despite having many colorful samich choices.

When ordering you step up to a fast food style Register, spit your order and take a seat.  Before you take your rest while waiting for your grub, they hand you a number that you place into a metal stand so that the servers can steer your eats to the right table. Derrick advised us that we had to try the milkshakes, so the milkshakes we tried.  Dan and I split a strawberry milkshake and my parents ordered a chocolate peanut butter shake. I ended up ordering a Shrimp Burger Po’Boy and Dan ordered the Black and Bleu Slider 4 Pack.  While biding my time for the food I decided to use the head.  Below you can see some pics of their clean bathrooms:

On the way back I saw that they have a number of dipping sauces you can choose from. I took the Thai Ketchup, the Ragin’ Cajun, and the Chipotle Mayo. (The Ragin’ Cajun and Chipotle Mayo were virtually indistinguishable from each other.  I also wished the Thai Ketchup had some more kick to it.)

When I came back the shakes had arrived. The strawberry shake was delicious.  I could probably just eat one of those for a meal.  I tried my Mom’s chocolate peanut butter shake and it caused me to reconsider the shake I had chosen.  If you like Hershey’s Peanut Butter Cups then you need to give that shake a shot.

Above you can see my Mom pulling off a good suburban cowboy impression.  I don’t think anyone can wear a jean jacket with a red-colored scarf without pulling this comparison.  Any cigarette smokers out there?  If so, you should snap a picture wearing a jean jacket and a red scarf, smoking a cigarette (if you have a cowboy hat that would be great) and I will post it on the site.

My Dad ordered the above burger.  I don’t have any insight into how it tasted but it looked quite edible.

Dan and I split the Po’Boy and the Sliders.  Anyone familiar with Fish Sticks should find the Shrimp Po’Boy in good standing, although it is far more refined in its execution.  The sautéed veggies and the sauce complimented the Po’Boy very well.  One thing to note, this really isn’t a Po’Boy. A traditional Po’Boy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po’_boy) comes in a sub/hoagie bun and is usually loaded with lettuce, tomatoes, mayo, a pickle, and fried fish or shrimp. I’ve never really seen Po’Boys offered in Michigan restaurants which is frankly a shame.  Despite the Shrimp Po’Boy not really being a Po’Boy, it was still delicious.

 The Black and Bleu sliders really stood out to me.  They did a great job of getting the salt worked well into the burgers, but the they used a Bleu Cheese dressing and not actual crumbled Bleu Cheese. I would gladly order these again.  Dan ordered a side of fries which, to use my mother’s words, ‘were very fresh.’  These were virtually shoe-string fries and they were well made. 

Burger 21 had a solid atmosphere and served up some good food.  Considering I ate the food in great company the experience earned a Rating: 4 out of 5 stars . 

3 Cheers,

Matt in Tampa

When Sia and I first moved to Clearwater we had a hell of a time finding a sushi restaurant.  From Sia’s tireless research using Google reviews she eventually found a couple acceptable places.  Tom Yum was one of those joints.  Our first experiences with Tom Yum were via take out.

The prices are average for a sushi place.  We both liked the ‘cute’ way they store their silverware/chopsticks in a rolled up napkin with custom embroidery. The restaurant had a number of  Buddhist accoutrements, and a very warm interior.  As you can see on their sign they have a fat cat waving at you, and to stick with that theme they did have a number of ‘golden paw waving cats’ that many eastern restaurants favor.  I’ve considered purchasing some of those cracked out golden cats for my apartment so that I can have frighteningly-large-eyed, ever-waving cats greet any visitors to my humble abode.  You’ve gotta make a good first impression, right? Really though, are these statuettes on LSD?

To start we ordered Tuna nachos. The concept was unique to me and the presentation was dead-on but the implementation was slightly off.  First, when eating nachos I’ve come to expect something hot or warm in temperature.  Due to the Tuna being uncooked the nachos were fairly cold, which is foreseeable.  Next, the sauce that the tuna was tossed in was almost cloyingly sweet. Again, this was slightly unexpected as I’ve grown accustomed to cumin and hot peppers getting involved with nachos.  The nachos were topped with a spicy mayo that had a kick and really pulled the dish back into the “nacho” realm.  In the end, the dish was very good but I felt that the term ‘nachos’ brought me to expect something different from what I received.  Despite all my nit-picking and bitching, I would order this dish again.

For our second course we ordered a spicy tuna roll, and a dragon roll.  From what I can recall, and I most certainly could be wrong about this, every sushi joint I’ve been to serves these same two rolls.  The spicy tuna roll is basically tuna, nori (seaweed wrap), and some hot mayo (and sometimes cucumber) and the dragon roll varies from restaurant to restaurant.  This particular variation included salmon, tuna, and white fish with an imitation crab center. Both rolls were crafted fairly well and both were delectable.  In retrospect, after describing the ‘dragon roll’, I think it may have actually been the Rainbow Roll.  I could be mistaken either way as it has been nearly 10 months since I ate at Tom Yum.

For round three I ordered “Mother In-law Beef ” which was described as ‘real Thai!’  The dish was essentially chopped beef stir fried with basil, green beens, and chilies.  Just as the menu forewarned, this dish was hot.  The chilies didn’t have a kick-you-in-the-teeth-wasabi effect, but rather a slow heat that gradually built up in your mouth and left you gasping for water.  The heat was great and I would gladly order this again if I was in the mood for something hot.

I would give Tom Yum a higher rating, but the service we received was terrible.  Twice, I had to remind the waitress to get my drink (after waiting 15 minutes when it became apparent that my drink was not coming), and not to be a dick but she bombed as a waitress.  Likewise, she took our drink order, never showed up with the drinks and after being reminded and showing up with the drinks disappeared for 20 minutes before taking our order.  I know people have off days, or perhaps are learning the ropes but it wasn’t busy in the restaurant, and the carry out orders didn’t seem to be coming in at an overwhelming volume. One of the other waitresses paid more mind to our dining experience by asking how we were doing or if we needed anything else when it became clear out waitress was a no-show.  By the good grace of previous experiences and the quality of the food Tom Yum isn’t pulling a one.

Overall: Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

-Matt in Clearwater

Mykonos is located in a tourist area of Tarpon Springs.  This particular spot is populated by Greek people, and the primary trade (other than trinkets and ‘Florida’-baubles) is sea sponges.  So despite it being fairly chilly for Florida in December, you could see tourists wandering around that evening in shorts and wearing no shirts (I happened to be wearing a hoodie). This particular section of Tarpon Springs has a particular flavor or character to itself that most of the Tampa area lacks.  I doubt I can accurately ascribe the character that belongs to the town, but there is a grit and a feeling of history for the place.  For those of you who haven’t visited Tampa, a large portion of the surrounding development is either new, and fairly unremarkable architecture.  Either that, or it’s filled with car dealerships, boat dealerships, and titty bars.  When driving Sia down to Tampa for the first time, I made the mistake of taking the “scenic” route and getting off of I-75 South and rerouting to US 19 somewhere around Odessa or New Port Richey.  So her first fill of the area was driving past an alternating strip of Walmarts, Car Dealerships, Boat Dealerships, assorted Fast Food joints, and a slew of greasy Strip Clubs.  In retrospect, that was a fair sampling of the Tampa area (admittedly there is more to Tampa than just that).  Enough of my diatribe on the ‘city planning’ of the greater Tampa Bay area and on to Mykonos.

When we first arrived to Mykonos, it was quite busy. The dining area appeared fairly small and very busy.  We had to wait for 10 or 15 minutes to get a table. While waiting to be seated I noticed that a number of the servers and cooks actually spoke Greek (as well as being staffed with folks from south of the Border as any great restaurant is).  The music coming out over the boombox was also Greek, and the head chef was Greek.  This all seemed indicative of having a fairly “authentic” and totally righteous meal.

Everyone showed up with a hearty appetite.  Before we ordered we were served freshly baked bread.  It was fairly standard ‘before the meal’-bread, but from what I understand Mykonos has it’s own in-house bakery. For an appetizer we ordered Saganaki (Opa!) which was salty, buttery and delicious. We also ordered Keftedes which is a pan-fried potato pastry.  The Keftedes were crispy on the outside yet very moist and creamy inside; they were very rich. The salads that came with virtually every meal were composed of very fresh vegetables and a chunk of feta.  The Chicken Lemon Soup had a very strong lemon flavor.  The chicken was shredded and was great.   Between the salad and the soup you could have stopped and had a nice meal from that alone.

To attempt to describe the meal that night would be to do it an injustice.  To put it simply, the food was like an exquisite Greek orgy of flavors in my mouth. As is typical with my family, we all shared what we ordered so I got to taste everything on the table.  I ordered the Mousaka, Dan got the Fila Dolmades (essentially Grape Leaves topped with an egg-lemon sauce), Sia ordered the Garides Mykonos which was a shrimp dish sautéed with fresh tomatoes, onions, herbs and feta cheese served on a bed of rice, my Mom ordered the Garides Ellinikes which is shrimp sautéed in garlic, oregano and Greek spices, and finally my Dad ordered the Lamp Chops which was served with another plate heaped with rice.  We were also given a plate of freshly sautéed pees (which were very good).  The portions were tremendous.

To top the evening off we ordered Baklava and Rice Pudding.  The Rice Pudding was fairly thick and the Baklava was Baklava.  We were also served a plate with a freshly cut apple topped with cinnamon which happened to trump the Baklava and Rice Pudding.

As you can see we had a considerable amount of leftovers to bring home (and later demolish).  We had an amazing evening at Mykonos and I would highly recommend it to anyone passing by Tarpon Springs.  Hell, it’s worth the effort to make the trip to Mykonos if you’re in the Tampa area.

Definitely a well deserved Rating: 5 out of 5 stars .

Belated in Tampa,
-Matt